All I Ever Wanted
by Green-eyesx
Summary: Example for the 'What About Alice' Contest. Even if Alice can't remember her human life it doesn't mean she didn't have one. A look into pre-vampire Alice and how difficult life was for somebody that was just a little bit different.


**A/N: So these is an example for the 'What about Alice?' contest, being hosted by Fanfiction Writing Challenges. I've never written an Alice-centric fic before but really enjoyed it. The aim of the game is to give Alice more **_**depth**_** whether you have her canon, AU, AH or anything really. More instructions can be found at the blog which can be found below.**

**If entering please include this header:**

**What about Alice? Contest  
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All I Ever Wanted 

If I'm not mistaken, everybody has a time when they've felt well and truly alone. When they've felt like nobody understands them, not their so-called 'friends', not even their own family. When it seems like everybody in the world is somehow in a parallel universe and you're just an outsider observing those around them.

Well my name is Mary Alice Brandon, and I have felt that way for as long as I can comprehend.

Ever since I was little I've..._seen_ things. I don't know how and I don't know why but somehow I know when certain things are going to occur. It started off as small, inconsequential things like the weather. Everybody would be out playing, the girls wearing thin dresses with pretty flower patterns and the boys in shorts showing off their knobbly knees and there I would be, wearing a jacket because the night before I'd dream it was going to rain. At first the other kids found it interesting, they'd laugh and ask me if they needed to bring a heavier coat out with them or if they should stay in because it was going to snow.

But...children can be cruel.

As I got older my..._visions_...started to change. I started to see things that were more important, things that had an impact on the lives of those around me. When I was 15 years of age my parents told my sister who was 2 years my junior, Cynthia, of them granting her their permittance to join a group of others down by the creek. I was immediately overwhelmed with a sense of dread as an image of Cynthia diving under the water and not coming back up again flashed through my mind. I begged my parents not to let her go, I cried and screamed and told them to prohibit her departure of the indoors but they wouldn't listen. By this point I didn't have any friends and they thought I was just jealous of my sister's popularity. The other children had grown afraid of me and had been whispering and hissing "_witch_" at me as I passed them on the street for years. Cynthia was the polar opposite; as I became quieter and more withdrawn into myself she flourished. Everybody loved her. The children would knock on the door for her every morning, she'd always be cordially invited to attend their birthday functions, and everybody would always arrive for hers in turn. Nobody ever came to my parties. By the time I turned 10 years of age, I gave up on holding them all together. All I wanted was for one person to show up and wish me a happy birthday; just _one_. But they never did. I was Mary Alice Brandon, 'the witch', and anybody that came near me was bound to be cursed. The only person who didn't treat me differently was Cynthia.

_Cynthia.  
_  
That day, I'll never forget it. My parents shooed me away and Cynthia assured me she'd be careful, she _promised _but the vision of her drowning was still in my mind. I couldn't bid it farewell. She made her way out of the house and my mother sent me back to my room. She always sent me to my room. She didn't like my visions either and preferred not to have to look at me most days. She demanded never to be informed of what I saw because it wasn't up to us to 'determine someone's fate' and I was supposed to let things lie as God wanted them. I waited ten minutes or so until I knew my mother would be distracted and crept back downstairs. I'm 19 years of age now and still only at the height of 4'10" so you can imagine how small I was at the age of 15, my mother didn't hear a peep. I made my way down to the creek that I used to play in as a small child before everyone got too afraid of me and waited at the place I knew Cynthia to be at from my vision. I didn't understand it; the creek wasn't that deep and although Cynthia was petite, like myself, she could swim. There was no reason for her to drown.

I waited behind a tree as the group of children came into sight. They dove into the creek prior to splashing, and gallivanting with each other around in the water. Cynthia announced to the group that she bet she could dive down to the bottom of the creek and back up again. I knew this was it; the moment. My body was vibrating with anxiety and anticipation. As soon as she dove under the water I ran out from behind the tree and jumped into the water too. I heard the other children start to shout and scream at my unknown presence but it didn't matter. Cynthia was in trouble and I had to save her.

I followed her under the water and squinted my eyes as I frantically scanned the area around me to see what had happened and there it was.

My mother had always insisted that Cynthia and myself wore our hair as long as we could, down to our waists. Some days we wore it high up in ponytails, some days we braided it and other days we let it loose. But we always had silk bows in our hair. Blue, green, pink, red, you name it. We had all the colours of the rainbow. How was my mother to know that on that day Cynthia's yellow bow would get tangled up with her hair and a loose tree branch at the bottom of the water, effectively tying her to the bed of the creek.

I swam over as fast as my little limbs could take me and began untangling the knot that had formed around Cynthia's hair. Thankfully I managed to undo it quite quickly despite Cynthia's flailing limbs that were determined on making the job harder. I grabbed her arm and pulled her back up to the surface of the water, before dragging her soggy body on to the grassy bank.

From that day on Cynthia and I were inseparable. Her popularity and reputation suffered because of her association with me but she always insisted that she didn't care. Before the day at the creek I was just her freak sister, it wasn't _her_ fault that she was related to me. But after that day she went everywhere with me. If somebody shouted something at me she'd be right there to shout back at them. Every cruel comment was deflected by my amazing sister and their words began to mean less because I had _her_. The children saw her allegiance to me and their sympathy for her disappeared; still she insisted that she didn't care.

We'd spend evenings talking, we'd do each other's hair, we'd go out shopping together and it was amazing. After all the years of solitude and...well, misery, I finally had someone.

I finally had that one person that accepted me but it didn't make my visions go away. In fact, the older I became, the more vivid they appeared. Until I was of the age of 18 my visions had only appeared in my dreams except for _very _rare cases, such as that day with Cynthia. But when I turned 18 they increasingly began to appear in everyday life, they would only last a split second, but they were there. I was beginning to learn to live with them, but one person was not, my mother. She had always kept me at arm's length but _now _she was terrified me. Cynthia told me that when I 'saw' something, my eyes would glaze over and I'd appear to stare into space. My mother caught me one day.

Since then she's been convinced that I am possessed by the devil.

Maybe I am? That thought never occurred to me before she brought it up. But if that were true why would he show me things that let me do good? Without my visions Cynthia would be dead! It cannot be the devil that makes me see such things if the result means Cynthia, the best person I have ever known, was spared her life, surely?

I explained all of this to my mother, but she refused to listen; I am the devil's child. The other children were right, she proclaims, I am a 'witch', sent here to haunt them all by Lucifer himself.

Can you imagine hearing your own _mother _say those words to you? Every word she speaks to me breaks my heart a little more. My own mother does not love me. My father pretends I don't exist but I know he feels the same way as her; he's just more direct about it.

Sometimes I don't know which is worse. What do you think? Would you rather be treated as though you are dead, and ignored every second of your life? Or would you take what attention you could have, even if they were words that condemned you to hell?

Cynthia tells me that they just don't understand. I don't know how that can be though. How can every person on this earth think I am evil, with the exception of her, and all be wrong? If that many people say it then surely they must be right.

I would give _anything_ for my parents love. That is why when they came into my room one night when it was pitch black and told me they were taking me somewhere that would help me, I believed them. It was the first time that my father had spoken to me in years, so why else would he start now unless it was to change things? I packed a suitcase promptly and followed them downstairs towards my new life. That was when Cynthia heard us.

"_No!_" She screamed. "_Please mother, father, don't do this! Don't take her!"_

I was confused and assured her I was going away so I could be helped, I could become _normal_ then we could be a real family and have friends, husbands, even children of our own!

_"Mary Alice please, please stay,_" she begged with tears in her eyes as my father dragged her back into her room.

I shouted after her to look after herself while I was gone and that I would see her soon.

_I now think I was wrong.  
_  
In this place there is no light, only dark. There is no day, only night. And there is no warmth, only cold.

Upon arrival, my mother handed me over to a strange man whose hands felt ice cold. My father didn't even get out of his newly purchased automobile. When I called out to my mother to ask what was happening, she carried on walking, never looking back.

They took all of my pretty bows, I have no idea what has become of them. And as for the dresses Cynthia and I bought on our days out together...well all I have been given to wear in my time here has been a thin night dress that does nothing to keep out the damp of this dark room I've been locked in.

The only time I've left the room has been for my 'treatments' and the day they...cleaned me.

My hair. My beautiful long hair is all gone. It was the last physical thing I had left tying me to Cynthia and the people here just shaved it away from my head as if it meant nothing.

Ordinarily I could say 'well it's only hair, it will grow back' and it is growing back, it's now a spiky length all over my head, but it means so much more to me, especially in this place. My hair, my bows, my dresses – all of these things were not mere objects to me. They were memories; memories of the only person that has ever loved me in my otherwise loveless existence.

_And I'm losing her.  
_  
Every day as they fill my body with more drugs, I feel my memories evaporating. I'm starting to forget what my parent's faces looked like, my sister is becoming blurred and everything I've ever known is slowly slipping away from me. I can barely eat. I've always been small but I'm becoming even thinner. All I can do is sleep, and drift in and out of consciousness as I try desperately to cling to my memories of my darling little sister.

The people here are cruel. Only the man with the cold hands ever shows me any compassion but he comes only rarely and never stays for long.

With every passing day I feel hope slipping away from me and hopelessness sliding into its place. I know I am doomed to spend the rest of my days here and for what? I am a prisoner that has committed no crime. What is it I am supposed to have done that is so heinous and so wrong?

All I ever wanted was a family. All I ever wanted were friends. All I ever wanted was to be _loved.  
_  
I feel today's drugs beginning to filter through my body and the unconsciousness that I have become familiar with starts to make its presence known.

And then, for the first time_, I see him.  
_  
I fight desperately to hold onto the vision before the inevitable sleep claims me and I see a face that is almost inhumanly beautiful, with golden coloured hair and perfect skin. I can see that he is tall, and lean, not lanky or too muscular.

I can feel the darkness claiming me and this beautiful man, whoever he is, slips from my mind.

I give in to the inevitable but for the first time in my life I hope that maybe, just maybe, all I ever wanted might still come true.

* * *

**A/N: Thank you for reading this! All of us at Fanfiction Writing Challenges hope that people will enter and aid us in the quest to give Alice the recognition she deserves!**

**Do let me know what you thought about this one/shot **


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